The European Commission’s 19th report on Hong Kong, released on Thursday, read: “The EU encourages the Hong Kong SAR and China’s central government to resume electoral reform in line with the Basic Law and to reach agreement on an election system that is democratic, fair, open and transparent.”

It added that universal suffrage would give the government greater public support and legitimacy in pursuing economic development and tackling social challenges such as socio-economic and generational divides.

The commission also said that the record turnouts in the Legislative Council and Election Committee elections had shown that people were eager to play an active role in political life and in deciding the future of Hong Kong.

But speaking at an academic conference on Hong Kong affairs held in Beijing on Saturday, the liaison office’s Wang, a former Tsinghua University law dean, said: “Political reform has failed after so many years.

“[Hong Kong] cannot afford to dedicate energy to political reform in the next five or 10 years, instead of housing, people’s livelihoods and the economy.”

The annual report is released in line with a commitment given to the European Parliament in 1997.

The report noted that parts of Hong Kong society were concerned about a gradual erosion of the city’s promised high degree of autonomy, with negative trends in press freedom in reporting on domestic and foreign policy developments of China.

But the report concluded that, overall, the “one country, two systems” principle continued to work well in 2016, as the rule of law remained the guiding principle for the government and society at large, along with freedom of speech and freedom of information generally being upheld.

Related

Post navigation

Search this blog

「我感到憂慮的，不是香港自主權會被北京剝奪，而是這項權利會一點一滴地斷送在香港某些人手裏（My anxiety is this: not that this community's autonomy would be usurped by Peking, but that it could be given away bit by bit by some people in Hong Kong）。」
----港督彭定康1996年發表他任內最後一份《施政報告》